"Pap says it's free miles on the road. Take all day ter get there."

The bright faces were overcast.

"Less go down er slide!" said Hickory boldly.

They approached the edge of the cliff. The "slide" was simply a sharp
incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for sliding
goods and provisions from the summit to the tunnel-men at the different
openings below. The continual traffic had gradually worn a shallow gully
half filled with earth and gravel into the face of the mountain which
checked the momentum of the goods in their downward passage, but
afforded no foothold for a pedestrian. No one had ever been known to
descend a slide. That feat was evidently reserved for the Pirate band.
They approached the edge of the slide, hand in hand, hesitated, and the
next moment disappeared.

Five minutes later the tunnel-men of the Excelsior mine, a mile below,
taking their luncheon on the rude platform of debris before their
tunnel, were suddenly driven to shelter in the tunnel from an apparent
rain of stones, and rocks, and pebbles, from the cliffs above. Looking
up, they were startled at seeing four round objects revolving and
bounding in the dust of the slide, which eventually resolved themselves
into three boys and a girl. For a moment the good men held their breath
in helpless terror. Twice one of the children had struck the outer edge
of the bank, and displaced stones that shot a thousand feet down into
the dizzy depths of the valley; and now one of them, the girl, had
actually rolled out of the slide and was hanging over the chasm
supported only by a clump of chamisal to which she clung!